The X-Men franchise began back in 2000, and since it was the first time the Marvel Comics property was being brought to the big screen, there was a lot of buzz about who should be cast in the various mutant roles of the titular superhero team. For example, Viggo Mortensenrevealed not too long ago that he turned down the role of Wolverine due to a commitment he had to another project. While we’ll always wonder how awesome that would have been, we couldn’t be happier that Australian actor Hugh Jackman ended up being launched into stardom by taking the role that he would go on to play for 17 years.

Beyond that though, you might be surprise to hear that there were some mind-blowing contenders who came in to read for various roles in the first X-Men movie. Believe it or not, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, came in to audition for Professor X. And he wasn’t the only chart-topping singer looking to play one of the Marvel mutants.

Learn about how Michael Jackson auditioned for X-Men and other surprising contenders after the jump. Read More »

What is Page 2? Page 2 is a compilation of stories and news tidbits, which for whatever reason, didn’t make the front page of /Film. After the jump we’ve included 30 different items, fun images, videos, casting tidbits, articles of interest and more. It’s like a mystery grab bag of movie web related goodness. If you have any interesting items that we might’ve missed that you think should go in /Film’s Page 2 – email us!

After the Telluride Film Festival premiere of his latest film, I had the opportunity to sit down and interview director Mark Romanek for a long-form interview. It was a collaboration between Alex from FirstShowing and myself, which explains how we were able to get so much time with the filmmaker.

Mark Romanek is one of the best music video directors to come out of the 1990’s. His videos have included Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”, “Scream” – Michael Jackson’s grammy award winning collaboration with sister Janet Jackson (at $7 million, one of the most expensive music video ever made), Janet Jackson’s “Got ‘Til It’s Gone”, Johnny Cash’s gut-wrenching cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”, En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind”, Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way”, Beck’s “Devil’s Haircut”, Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” and Fiona Apple’s “Criminal”. His 2002 feature film One Hour Photo is probably best known for Robin Williams’ dramatic turn. While the film is beloved by cinephiles, it pretty much went under the radar of mainstream audiences. It did however gain Romanek a lot of the respect in the movie industry. His follow-up, a big screen adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro‘s novel Never Let Me Go, premiered at the 37th Telluride Film Festival. The book was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Novels (from 1923 to the Present), featured on many top ten books of 2005 lists, and a finalist in the National Book Critic Circle Award.

We ran the first part of the interview yesterday, click here if you missed it. After the jump is part two of the chat, where we talk about the casting for Never Let Me Go, deleted scenes, what’s up next, the state of the music video industry, clarifying the Guinness Book of World Records-perpetrated lie that he was responsible for the most expensive music video ever made, why Michael Jackson/Janet Jackson‘s “Scream” cost so much, the wonders of creative producing, and what he thought of Joe Johnston‘s The Wolfman. Hit the jump to read the interview.

Academy Awards viewership went up 3%, but still didn’t crack the 40 million-viewer mark as it has three of the past six years. May-be they should hire a funny host next year. Make the show entertaining perhaps? Spread out the major awards? Just a couple thoughts.